Justice: Young returns home with career at crossroads

Commentary: Curious case of VYThe ultimate competitor as a high school and college star, Vince Young’s fall from grace in Tennessee puzzles those who know him best. But they warn against counting him out

RICHARD JUSTICE, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle |
December 12, 2008

Vince Young has always been successful against the Texans but struggled against the rest of the league.

Vince Young’s reputation is in tatters, his career in doubt. If you’d known him then, would you recognize him now?

“I sometimes wondered how he’d handle adversity,” said Ray Seals, Young’s coach at Madison High School. “All through high school and college, Vincent never had many down times.”

He pauses to consider what he’s going to say next.

“I guess he didn’t handle it very well,” he said.

Seals is like a lot of us in that he never saw Young fail at anything, and he’s having trouble comprehending the Vince Young he has been reading about.

In Nashville, they’re saying Young is a quitter. And he’s a selfish jerk. And not all that committed to his job.

They’re saying he tried to beg his way out of one game and refused to go back in another.

There was enough concern about his mental health that police were summoned when he disappeared for a few hours in September.

His only start of the season was in the season opener. He got booed loudly before suffering a knee injury. He hasn’t started a game since as the Titans have rolled up a 12-1 record on their way to Sunday’s game against the Texans at Reliant Stadium.

His friends say he’s mentally and physically ready to play again, but his body language on the sideline suggests otherwise.

“We stay in touch,” UT coach Mack Brown said Thursday. “He’s proud of the team. At the same time, like any competitor, he’s disappointed he’s not playing. He’s doing really well right now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he helped the Titans win the Super Bowl.”

This weekend, Young will be returning to a place that loves him almost unconditionally. Welcome home, Vince.

There’s almost no way to comprehend that this Vince Young is also that other Vince Young.

That Vince Young was the best college football player on earth. He was 30-2 as a starter at Texas and could pretty much control games with his arm or legs.

Remember the Oklahoma State game? UT trailed by 16 points at halftime, but Young walked over to Brown, put his arm around him and said something like, “It’s taken care of.”

The Longhorns scored 35 unanswered points in the second half, and Young finished with 506 yards of offense. That Vince Young was the living, breathing definition of a winner.

Remember how his defensive teammates reacted when they stopped USC late in the national championship game three years ago?

They were putting the game in Young’s hands, and to a man, they knew how it was going to turn out.

They were right. Young drove the Longhorns 56 yards in the final two minutes and ended one of the greatest games ever played with an 8-yard touchdown run.

He rushed for 200 yards and passed for 267 that night. No player has been better.

Young was beloved in a way that even star athletes aren’t always beloved. They tell stories of how he led summer workouts and set a standard of work and production for everyone else to follow.

An example for McCoy

Colt McCoy says his amazing career at Texas was helped in large part because he watched the way Young walked, talked, led and played. That’s on the field and off.

When Young passed up his final year of eligibility for the NFL, he still returned to Austin to fulfill elementary school appearances that had been made months earlier.

He’s easily the most popular player in Texas history. When he returned last August to have his No. 10 retired, he heard an explosion of cheers the moment he stepped from the tunnel onto the field at Royal-Memorial Stadium.

At a time when his every throw was being second-guessed in Nashville, when the fans were beginning to grumble and the columnists and message boards wondered if he might be a $58-million bust, Young must have been struck by a swirl of emotions that day.

“He’s an amazing person,” said Texans guard Kasey Studdard, Young’s teammate at Texas and still a friend. “If I needed him, he’d be there. I have no doubt about that.”

To those of us who admired his talent and grit, who saw the way he could inspire a locker room, it’s hard to imagine the sulking figure we see on the Tennessee sideline.

The amazing thing is that he stepped onto an NFL field in 2006 and had the same success he had at UT. He led the Titans to a 6-1 finish and was named to the Pro Bowl.

He regressed some last season and then never got going this season. Some have wondered if football is no longer fun.

Playing quarterback in the NFL is different from playing at other levels. Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels are at Reliant Stadium most days before 6 a.m. and stay until after 5 p.m.

That time is spent mostly in meetings and watching hour upon hour of video of opposing defenses. For every hour they spend on the field, there are probably three hours spent studying.

Did Young understand this part of the game? Did he know how much would be required? Is he willing to pour himself into his job the way most successful NFL quarterbacks are?

Advice from elders

Some veteran quarterbacks, including Steve McNair, have reached out to him. Here’s hoping he understands his career will be whatever he makes of it. It won’t be about the media or the fans or bad luck. His career is up to him.

“I know he’s making the most of this time,” Studdard said. “He’s watching Kerry Collins (the Tennessee starter), learning things, learning the little things. He’s making the best of this. When he gets a chance, he’ll be ready.”

Young declined to be interviewed for this column. He seldom talks to reporters anymore and apparently blames the media for some of his problems.

“At some point in his career, he was going to hit some bumps in the road,” Brown said. “He was an absolute star in high school. He had tough times here, but people forget them.

“He won the national championship and was up for every award. He was the first rookie quarterback to play in the Pro Bowl. It’s hard to maintain that standard without some things happening that aren’t as good.”

Still, it’s the idea that he begged out of a playoff game last year that’s incomprehensible, that he didn’t want to go back in the game, that he no longer had the same fight he’d shown that night against USC.

“Listen, I’d be very, very hesitant to believe everything you hear without being in that dressing room,” Brown said. “Sometimes the reality is different.